August 19, 1992
Dear Everyone:
“Jeannie” would like to go on record as pointing
out that we went shopping last Saturday and she didn't buy
anything (including dinner,
now that I think about it).
The truth of the matter is, we didn't have a lot of
time for shopping, although there was time for
buying, if you knew exactly what you wanted to buy and where in the
store to find it. Which is pretty
much what I did: Go straight to
the merchandise in mind, take it to the cashier, hand over money (or
credit card), received merchandise, leave.
What could be simpler?
Right, not shopping at all.
Actually, we were between haircuts and the theater
on Saturday, having tickets to see
Lettice and
Loveage, starring
Julie Harris, at
the Curran Theatre
in San Francisco.
The Lettice in question is the dingy lady played by
Julie Harris, a woman hired by the Historical Society to guide tourists
through "Fustian House" a country estate in England.
Unfortunately, "Fustian House" is
a bastion of English boredom; nothing interesting ever happens there,
with the possible exception of a visit from
Elizabeth I.
Before long, Lettice is embroidering history to
make the tour is more interesting for her guests; and the little saucer
by the exit, "for whatever tokens of appreciation as you may wish to
leave", is soon replaced by a tureen. As
she explains to her horrified supervisor, "Fantasy rushes in where fact
leaves a vacuum."
And "loveage" is a brew of Lettice’s own creation,
based on some historical references. A
sort of homemade mead with a substantial kick, which gets more than one
of the characters into trouble.
On Sunday, the temperature soared to 97° which, to
my way of thinking, is about 30° too #@&! hot.
“Jeannie” and I decided to do
what a lot of people did, went to the movies.
What better way to spend a summer
afternoon then shut up in the cool dark with a bucket of popcorn in your
lap?
We chose
Buffy, the Vampire Slayer,
for obvious reasons. Actually, we
had hoped to see this movie last weekend with “Marshall” and “Glinda”.
But by the time they made it out
of Marin, it was much too late.
The Buffy in the movie (unlike the one we all know
and love) is your typical, self-absorbed teenager whose ambition in life
is "to graduate from high school, go to college, marry
Christian Slater
and die". More or less in that
order. For those of you who don't
know, Christian Slater is an attractive young actor, too old for Buffy,
of course, (and too young for the rest of us!)
But at that age, you are always
interested in "older" men.
Enter
Donald
Sutherland as a sad-eyed, gentle-voiced, much-older man, who informs
Buffy that he has searched the world over to find her and present her
with her birthright. Buffy:
"Is that like, you know, a trust
fund?"
Not exactly. She
is "The Chosen One", born to slay vampires and, hopefully, destroy their
leader, played by a rather hefty
Rutger Hauer,
who doesn't seem to have had a really decent role since
Ladyhawke.
His chief minion is played by
Paul Rubens,
better known in some circles as
Pee-Wee Herman.
Of course, “Jeannie” had to point
them out to me as I don't, as a general rule, pay much attention to
Pee-Wee Herman.
Buffy is not impressed with this "birthright".
Her attitude is, "if I'm the
Chosen One, then I choose to
go shopping". Even when the old
man proves to her that there are vampires, preying on her school, and
that she is, in fact, adept at dispatching them, Buffy still isn't
particularly interested until the vampires commit the ultimate breach:
Crashing the Senior Dance.
Then it's Katie-Bar-the-Door.
On the whole, the movie is cute and occasionally
hilarious (although not necessarily in places the producers intended);
but I don't think it's destined to become a classic.
Still, if you do decide to go
(plenty of hot afternoons left), stay all the way through the closing
credits. Like a lot of filmmakers
these days, the producers have started slipping some good laughs into
the credits, not unlike the magazines who put all of the cartoons in the
back with the advertisements.
After the movie, we sauntered on over to the
shopping plaza to look at the dinosaurs.
Again, we had hoped to share the dinosaurs with “Marshall” and
“Glinda”, but they couldn't make it. So
this week, we bought one of those all-in-one cameras-with-film and took
about 20 shots of various prehistoric reptiles all made from recycled
parts from American-made
(they make a point of mentioning this) automobiles.
Except for the turtle, which is
made largely from the roof of a
Volkswagen
beetle.
“Jeannie” has the camera and is in charge of
getting the pictures developed and starting them circulating through
family and friends.
Love, as always,
Pete
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